


cut in half

by vertigoo



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Found Family, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, the last two are heavily referenced but not actually in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25685713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vertigoo/pseuds/vertigoo
Summary: Was it all worth it? The heartache, the pain that his future held, was it really worth it? When he saw those future incarnations of himself so long ago, when the rules of reality grew weak and left him with fuzzy memories he was sure to lose the moment his face changed, were they aching as much as he?After stopping the Dalek's master plan at the cost of two of their friends, things are not the same.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Kudos: 5





	cut in half

Steven had refused to leave his room for quite a while now. If the Doctor had known any less about the human species, he would have attributed his moodiness to simple-minded, young teenage angst. However, Steven was in his mid-twenties, far too old for hormonal mood swings, and even when Susan or, hell, the Doctor himself had had their own angsty turmoil, it had always been for brief periods of time.

However, the Doctor did not need to speculate as to why Steven was hiding away in his room, or why the TARDIS had attempted to move said room to be as far away from the Doctor’s own as possible, whilst still within short walking distance to the console room. Two of their friends had died recently, a lovely Trojan girl named Katarina and an insightful, if too smart for her own good at times, woman named Sara Kingdom.

The Doctor and Steven were no strangers to death. It seemed to come as a part of the time traveller’s deal, and even before they had known each other, people had died. It was a part of any being’s life cycle, human or not. There was something, however, so deeply personal about these two, and it shook the Doctor to his very core. To watch them both die before his and Steven’s eyes was almost too much.

The moment the two of them had gotten inside the TARDIS and taken off once more, Steven had yelled at the Doctor. He was too calm, too accepting of the deaths of their friends, and it infuriated Steven, but the Doctor could also tell it made him scared. If the Doctor was entirely honest, it almost scared himself as well.

Instead of responding to Steven’s outburst, the Doctor had just stood at the console, head down and hands gripping his lapels with a neutral expression on his face. He could barely make out his reflection in the dull metal surface, but he was certain his face had more lines than before, and it wasn’t just from the field that…

That had killed Sara.

The Time Lord let out a heavy sigh that only served to make the feeling in his lungs tighten, like a snake squeezing its prey. Steven had left the room some time ago, and so now he was all alone. He wondered if his companion would want to go back to his own time now. He wouldn’t blame him if he did, and he supposed it might do him some good to travel on his own for a while.

Quickly, he shook his head to rid himself of the thought. He needed his companions to ground him, Lord only knows what he would do if he went off on his own to try and assist time down its natural path. He would probably cause more harm than good and accidentally meddle with affairs that weren’t meant to be meddled with, knowing himself.

None of that really mattered, however, if Steven decided he wished to go. The Doctor couldn’t stop him, he could hardly even stop him telling anyone that entered the TARDIS how shoddy of a driver he was. Even if he wasn’t as stubborn as a mule, the Doctor would have let him go anyways. To keep him around when- no, _if_ he didn’t want to be around would be a dreadful idea.

The Doctor let out a huff of air as he dared to show a small smile, amused at his own thoughts. He had certainly come a long way from what he used to be, an alien with no qualms about kidnapping two school teachers to someone who, outside of appearance, could very well pass for… human.

He ran a hand over the console, rubbing his fingers together as if dust had collected on his fingertips. The TARDIS was always in pristine condition, and Steven would always ask why he would do that if he had no reason to, but the Doctor would tut at him and say that it was _all a matter of maintaining appearances, my boy_. The Doctor then decided what he was going to do.

Pulling his coat tighter to protect himself from a wave of cold uneasiness that he was not familiar to, even after all these years, the Doctor began making his way down the corridors in an attempt to try and find Steven’s room, again. It appeared that the TARDIS was not all too pleased with his handling of the situation either and was trying to prolong the two men inevitably meeting up again.

There weren’t many other options. The Doctor could not stare at the monitor to admire the vast emptiness of space, with its stars twinkling brightly, trying to name every single one without knowing where they were in time. Admittedly, after Steven’s outburst, it had been one of the first things he had tried to do, but all it did was remind him of Katarina, frozen and blue.

After the fiftieth bland white corridor that the TARDIS had steered him through, he found Steven’s room. Normally he would have missed it easily, but either he or the TARDIS had made a very blunt sign to hang from the doorknob. Both should have known by now that any sign that said ‘Keep Out, Doctor’ simply would not work on him.

The Doctor fiddled with his cane, as if doing so would somehow stir up some more confidence from deep within him even though he was certain he had amassed all of it, before resting one hand on the doorknob and twisting it. The door opened, as to be expected, silently, but Steven had still noticed.

The Doctor hadn’t exactly known what to expect of his companion. Would he lash out again? Perhaps he was huddled in the corner, crying. Either of those reactions would have been far preferable to what had happened, which was that Steven, from where he sat cross-legged on his bed, barely turned his head to glance at the Doctor before returning to staring at the wall in front of him, as if it held the secrets of the universe.

Carefully, the Doctor stepped one foot into the room, then two, testing Steven for any reaction. When there was none, he slowly made his way to the chair closest to the door and turned it around to face his companion, before taking a seat. He had certainly not felt as old as he looked before this adventure of theirs, with joints clicking and popping as he sat down.

Silence hung heavy in the air as neither of them dared to speak. Was there any need to? Out of all the people the Doctor had travelled with so far, aside from Susan, Steven had stuck around the longest, and maybe it was beginning to show. There was some sort of unspoken conversation happening between them, at least in the Doctor’s mind. Maybe Steven had been playing what he could say in reply over in his own head as well, and that was why he was so quiet.

As if history was hellbent on repeating itself, Steven was the first to speak again, this time without the anger that had been comparable to that of a caged mountain lion. “I always forget just how alien you are.” It was barely more than a whisper, and the Doctor almost thought he had imagined it, but Steven was watching him out of the corner of his eye, waiting for his response.

“You wouldn’t be the only one,” the Doctor attempted a joke, but instead it did nothing but to serve as a grim reminder of what he had not only lost, but let go.

This time when silence fell between them it was clearer, no longer filled with the buzzing of words unsaid. The Doctor took this as an opportunity to get closer to Steven, perhaps in a way of comforting him as he’d seen his human companions comfort each other. Or, perhaps, how he used to console Susan.

When the Doctor got up from his seat, Steven turned his head to get a proper look at him, and that’s when the Doctor realised why he had been so intent on facing away. His eyes were red and puffy, although it was starting to fade, and his cheeks were covered in a mess of tear tracks.

“I know you’ve lost a lot, Doctor,” Steven said, and the Doctor stopped in his tracks, “you’re an old man, and don’t try to tell me you’re not. It’s just…” he sniffed in an attempt to hold back more tears, then turned back to face the wall, “it would help, if you could at least pretend.”

The Doctor shifted his weight from one foot to the other, trying to decipher Steven’s words. He understood them, of course, but humans had a way of not always saying what they meant, especially when they were not in the best of moods. “You’re cross because I’m not expressing my grief in the same way as you, am I correct?”

Steven scoffed, although the tears and snot going down his throat made it sound more like he was about to cough up gunk. “You’re not grieving. At least, not in any way I’ve ever seen. You just stand there, doing nothing, saying nothing, of course I’m going to get cross with you! We lost two of our friends—”

“Steven,” the Doctor said with a voice like sharp steel, and Steven stopped. “You’re right. I am an old man, and I’ll live to be a lot older. I have a lot of time, but none of it, absolutely _none_ of it, can I set aside for grief in the way you experience it. If I did, it might very well kill me.”

There was something akin to anger and yet not quite, bubbling away in the pit of the Doctor’s heart. To be accused of such a thing, by a companion no less, was inflammatory, and yet he could not bring himself to yell at Steven. The Doctor sighed, before finally taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He could feel Steven tremble as he fought back sobs, and there was a faint whir of thoughts stirring in his mind.

“I do not blame you,” the Doctor finally said, allowing Steven’s mind to calm down, even if for a brief moment, “for yelling at me. You certainly were not the first, and I doubt you will be the last.” He allowed himself to chuckle, before swiftly returning to his original train of thought.

“You’re a young man, no matter how much you try to hide it with your intelligence, which I think is why you got annoyed with Sara so easily,” Steven huffed, but this time the Doctor knew he was right in his assumption. “Losing people so suddenly, when you feel like you could have prevented it… it takes a toll no matter the age, but especially when you’re young.”

“You say that like you know what it’s like,” Steven was trying to clean his face up by wiping his sleeve over it, but it wasn’t working as well as he had hoped it would. He paused for thought, picking his words carefully, then continued. “You do, don’t you?”

“Yes, my boy, I do,” the Doctor answered, his voice quiet. No matter how artificially aged his body looked, it could never compare to the ache in his eyes. It was as if he had seen what was to happen, heard whispers of it after he told people his name, people that knew a version of him that he didn’t know.

As Steven let down his walls to cry properly, to grieve as the Doctor enveloped him in a hug as a father would a son, the Doctor could sense his own mind wandering. Was it all worth it? The heartache, the pain that his future held, was it really worth it? When he saw those future incarnations of himself so long ago, when the rules of reality grew weak and left him with fuzzy memories he was sure to lose the moment his face changed, were they aching as much as he?

It dawned on him why some of his fellow Time Lords, those who, like him, had had a rebellious nature in their youths, had never dared to get close to those outside their own species. Humans, no matter how similar they looked to him, were far more fragile. The Doctor’s hands shook as he held Steven tighter.

He promised himself that he would try his hardest never to let any other human that he brought on his travels suffer a fate like that of Katarina or Sara. He did not think he could stomach how it felt, to see such precious beings crumble to nothing, any more than he already had.

Perhaps the fragility of this species was not such a bad thing, the Doctor thought. After all, it had brought him so much joy, to let himself be free of the standards he had held himself up to for far too long, and it was the humans he had met that had allowed him to do that. He could ponder more on that thought later. For now, he was quite content letting himself cry over the deaths of two friends he had loved.

**Author's Note:**

> hi, thanks so much for reading my fic :) this is my first time publishing a doctor who fic i think at all?? and im sorry for any inaccuracies that might be spotted, i cant find the daleks master plan in any stores so i did my best with the info the wiki provided. i hoped you enjoy reading this fic as much as i enjoyed writing it!  
> sincerely, cosmas 
> 
> p.s. i might upload more doctor who fics soon, once i finish enough chapters of the one i made with my own doctor and companions :)


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